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After much talk the New York Times has finally launched City Room , a news and online community blog dedicated to New York's five boroughs.

The paper's Times Metro reporter Sewell Chan will act as City Room bureau chief.

In addition to running stories from the metro desk City Room will offer non-news features about the history and civic culture of the city, and encourage reader comments and discussion.

City Room will also feature forums for reader comment and discussion on city issues, profiles on areas of the city, links to other news material on the web about the Big Apple.

The blog will also experiment with multi-media by hosting Q and A sessions with newsmakers and Times journalists, where readers will ask the questions.

"City Room is the most audacious online venture the Metro desk has so far conceived and committed to," said Joe Sexton, metropolitan editor of The Times, in a press statement.

"The name of the site is a nod to our past and the time-tested methods of good reporting, which Sewell employs with such formidable skill - asking tough questions, digging up documents, burning shoe leather. But as City Room evolves, Sewell will constantly experiment with new ways to engage readers, and we expect that it will become increasingly informative, expansive and entertaining."

City Room is the latest addition to the drive by large news groups to encourage user-interaction on ultra-local news websites.

Last week Chicago Sun-Times announced it was expanding a pilot project to have 30 ultra-local sites for areas of the Illinois city.

In the UK Trinity Mirror have been experimenting with local sites based around postcodes in Middlesbrough.

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Written by
Oliver Luft

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